A Good Memory
by J9
Summary: Luka remembers his wedding night. (Spoilers for Secrets and Lies)


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Title: A Good Memory

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Fandom: er

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Summary: Luka remembers his wedding night.

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Notes: Second day of summer holidays, I find in the morning the Breakfast Club episode of er (or whatever the proper name is) and I remember why I love Luka, and why that pod-person that masqueraded as Luka in season ten is not in fact the real Luka. Then I come online and see that the writer's choice challenge of the week is flashback. I'm not entirely convinced that this is a flashback, but it's as close as I'm getting to one!

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He sits in the classroom, the words from the others washing over him. They laugh and they joke and they make fun, talking about losing their virginity, and he can't help but be reminded that this is just another way that he's different, another way that he's an outsider. Nothing to do this time with language, or name, or accent, and everything to do with the way they think, the profanity with which they talk about something he considers sacred. 

Abbey and Susan started the conversation, finding an unlikely leader of their competition in Gallant, finding an even more unlikely one in Carter, and he sits silently, hoping that they'll forget about him, that they won't ask him. 

He hopes in vain though, because ask him they do, and he dissembles at first because he doesn't want to share this with them, not like this. 

But they don't stop, and so he tells them, stopping their conversation with three simple words. 

"My wedding night." 

Silence falls in the room, and the words do what he knew they would, open up his memory, sending him spinning back in time, across oceans, to that night. The classroom, his colleagues, the dusty blackboard filled with Whitman, they all vanish, and all he can see is her. 

His Daniela, looking so beautiful in her white gown, such a stark contrast with her dark hair and eyes. She was always beautiful to him, since the first time he'd seen her when they were little more than children, but that day, she was radiant. 

He remembers her smile as they stood before the priest, the blush on her cheeks when he took her hand in his and very nearly dropped it in shock, because it was so cold. He hadn't known that she'd be so nervous, but her hand shook when she put the ring on his finger, and he could feel her entire body shake when he kissed her. 

He remembers their families, their friends, everyone that they'd known and loved in their lives it seemed, coming together with them to celebrate, how they'd sung and danced and laughed until the wee small hours of the morning. 

It had been then that he'd taken Daniela back to the small one-room apartment in which he'd been living for the previous few months, the one he'd so painstakingly decorated, preparing for her arrival. It had been nothing much, in fact, he'd almost been ashamed to bring her there, but she'd told him that she didn't care, that she was just happy to be there with him, as his wife. 

He'd looked in her eyes, and he'd known that she was telling him the truth, so he'd pulled her to him, kissed her with all the passion that he'd felt inside, felt the kiss returned with equal intensity. 

From then on, he remembers everything, every look, every touch, exactly how she felt in his arms that night. He remembers too every emotion that passed over her face, in her eyes, and he cherished them, because he knew that she was seeing the same emotions in him. And hours later, when they lay together, her wrapped in his arms, her head resting over his heart, he remembers thinking that this must be what Heaven felt like. 

He'd never felt like that before, and while the birth of his two children were magnificent, awe-inspiring events in their own right, that night with Daniela was the first time he'd ever felt like that, as if all was right with the world and he was exactly where he was supposed to be. 

The silence pulls him back to his own time, from a warm Croatian bed to a cold Chicago classroom, and Daniela's face fades from his mind, replaced by four faces all looking at him with equal expressions of surprise and dismay combined. He can tell that they feel awkward, that they're not sure of what to say, so he talks a little more. Tells them that they were very young, that Daniela was very religious, that they decided to wait. 

He's glad they waited. 

But still, his friends look at him; still they sit in silence, as if they're afraid to talk, as if they're worried that they've caused him pain. He doesn't have the words to tell them that they haven't, that he remembers that night with fondness, with a smile, so he tells them instead that it's ok, that it's a good memory. 

He lies though, because it's a wonderful memory. 

And because, after all this time, it still hurts. 


End file.
